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" Garrison Keillor's 'Lake Wobegon' books create a world I can immerse myself in over and over. I love the deadpan humour, the warmth, and the wonderful characters in The Sidetrack Tap. I discovered them when I was about 30, starting with 'Leaving Home' and 'We Are Still Married,' and fell in love with the place and those flat Midwestern vowels. "

Fiona Barton

Home

Myself

" Mental health is something that I'm very interested in. "

" When I first became a journalist, people said, 'Oh, that must be interesting.' They saw it as slightly glamorous, slightly edgy. They wanted to know more. "

" Since reading 'Sophie's Choice,' I have been haunted by the agonizing idea of choosing between two children. "

" It is a sad truth that apprenticeships fell out of favour in Britain in the Seventies and Eighties, when the manufacturing industries shed jobs and the construction industry went into decline. "

" A lot of people think journalists are criminals, and there are some who haven't helped us. But the media is essential for democratic society. "

Fiona Barton

Some

Media

" For me, there has always been the irresistible lure of a secret. "

" I like my villains clever, deep, and driven by pure evil. "

Fiona Barton

Clever

Evil

" I chose to write from different perspectives despite its complexity because it is what I have always done as a journalist. "

" The success of 'The Widow' meant there were expectations for the second book from the first word, and it has created a completely different writing experience. Not to say I haven't enjoyed writing 'The Child,' but I confess there were times when I felt as if I was wrenching it out of my body with bloodied fingernails! "

" When you start writing fiction, you have to learn to invent, and it's very hard at the beginning to stop relying on facts and what you've heard. "

" As a journalist, your words are regularly read by lots of people, but they're not your words: they're someone else's. You're quoting people. "

" When you think about it, psychological thrillers often involve extraordinary events happening to ordinary people. "

" Once you write a book, you hand it over to the readers, and it's their book then. They're so involved. They ask questions about details that I haven't even thought about. "

" It's a wonderful experience to be reading a story and think you've got things all figured out, and then suddenly, it all goes upside-down on you. "

" I know I love a novel with an unreliable narrator, and I think many readers do as well. "

" For most of us, our protective lies or omissions are so insignificant that being found out would be only mildly embarrassing. But for some of us, our secret may threaten to destroy everything. And that is food and drink to a novelist. "

" When you are a journalist, you are always looking for the next story. It might come from a phone call from a contact or an unanswered question you spot in someone else's article. "

" I can't think whether I've actually interviewed the widow of a crime suspect. Obviously, I've interviewed members of the families of people who've been accused of things. "

" The imagination is such as powerful tool: suggestion is all you need. People fill in gaps. "

" It's amazing to me that journalists are held in such low esteem. "

" Writing is not just about putting words on a page. Ideas have to cook first. "

" The unsaid is a powerful tool. It invites the reader into the narrative, filling in gaps, interpreting silences and half-finished sentences, and seeing the hidden fear in someone's eye. "

" It was this fascination with hidden lives, I suspect, that led me to journalism; seeking to uncover the truth about people became a job. "